


Awoke With A Scar

by leftfoottrapped (miikkaa_xx)



Category: DBSK|Tohoshinki|TVXQ
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 10:49:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miikkaa_xx/pseuds/leftfoottrapped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yunho is carved out by all those around him. (or: four times Yunho fell in love, and the one time someone fell in love back.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awoke With A Scar

**Author's Note:**

> **warnings:** heavy use of imagery and metaphor, heartbreak, non-explicit sex, happiness! unbeta'd - feel free to point out any mistakes in prose and/or characterisation.

-

**v.**

Heechul is made of fire and volcanoes; he spits lava and laves wounds over with ash, crashes through the organized squalor of Yunho’s life and curls his burning fingertips around Yunho’s spine – and tugs.

‘I’m Heechul. And who are you?’ he asks with an imperious arch of his eyebrows as they stand barefoot in the changing room, meeting each other for the first time.

‘Yunho. I’m a dancer,’ says Yunho, enraptured.

Heechul considers. ‘A good one?’

Yunho blinks, tries for an answer, comes up empty. ‘Yes, because I won a dance competition’ sounds like an hollow admission. ‘Yes, because I like dancing’ seems void.

The lack of reply has Heechul snorting, tossing his head back in clear disappointment. ‘Nevermind.’

It stings. Something in Yunho reels back as if he’s been burned, and there’s a simmer of disdain, of dislike that curls itself free from his gut and sears its way up Yunho’s throat. It leaves him thinking to himself as he moves through training – his stomach still clenched from the scorch of Heechul’s sneer.

 

 

Three days later, he finds Heechul toweling off his hair as the other steps out of the shower in the dressing room. Quickly, Yunho pulls on his sweatpants and a tanktop to head to dance practice, but he can’t help but catch Heechul’s eye.

‘Hey,’ greets Heechul, voice inquisitive, and Yunho has an answer on his tongue.

‘I’m the best dancer. In all of Korea.’

He watches Heechul’s face cycle through a myriad of expressions from confusion to irritation to something that resembles pride. ‘Really now?’ he drawls, and his voice is a lick of fire that scrapes itself down Yunho’s spine.

‘Yeah.’ Confidence slinks over the syllable, drapes itself over the word as casually as the towel over Heechul’s shoulders.

‘And who knows this – except for you and I?’

There is a challenge in here somewhere, and Yunho is that reckless teenager that’s never been afraid to jump off buildings and run along the top of fences and stalk through alleyways. ‘Soon, everyone’ll know. Parents, kids, teens. All of ‘em.’

Heechul laughs at him – outright and clear, his voice the rumble that preludes an eruption, and Yunho should’ve known right then and there that he was in danger. ‘Alright, _Yunho_. You may call me hyung from now on.’

 

 

Yunho falls in love with Heechul on a Wednesday when they’re sitting on Heechul’s bed and Heechul’s long strands of red hair fall over a Korean grammar book as they hunch over it together, making Yunho relearn his manners, the shape of his words, a new Korean that’s all soft sounds in the back of his throat.

When Heechul moves his head, the hair leaves trails of fire across the curve of Yunho’s cheek and Yunho is left watching the other with absentminded smile, enraptured.

‘Stop staring at my ear and start again,’ scolds Heechul when he notices.

The man is on a warpath to burn the Gwangju out of Yunho’s mouth. Yunho presses his shoulder against Heechul, closes his eyes, and feels the searing burn of the other right down to the tendons under his skin. ‘Okay, top of the page?’

 

 

Heechul’s mouth is what the sun must feel like, Yunho thinks. A white-minded blaze, a whole, enrapturing experience, seared into his psyche for the rest of his days. His fingers leave permanent scorch marks down the skin of his back, his tongue a river of lava that quests to set everything it touches on fire.

‘Hey,’ murmurs Heechul into the skin of his cheek, his breath a hot reminder of what he is, what he embodies. ‘Hey, we’re still going to be friends after this.’

There’s a hand on Yunho’s chest and it’s melting through his skin, slicing through his ribs, finding his heart.

‘But I love you,’ tries Yunho, his voice lost in the oncoming eruption.

‘Friends,’ reminds Heechul patiently, all hyung. The fingers are so tight, so hot on his chest. There’s tongues of flame licking up his throat, scalding the roof of his mouth. ‘Just friends.’

Yunho burns.

-

 

**vi.**

Junsu is made of water and whirlpools; he’s all swift-moving river and crashing waves, and he curls around around Yunho’s burnt husk, soothes his aches and slides down his parched throat like a salve.

Watching him for the first time is a profoundly humbling experience, realizes Yunho, whose legs now feel like a cluttered mess, his arms made of wood with their puppet strings cut, flailing and failing.

Still, Junsu’s group clears to the sides and Yunho takes stage with the rest of peers. He performs, moves to the choreography as he always does, wonders if there is a cool stare on the back of his neck – if Junsu observes him as he was observed by Yunho.

When the session ends hours later, Yunho showers and dresses and makes his way to the cafeteria where he is confronted with: ‘You’re a good dancer.’

Junsu is standing in front of him, smiling, holding a tray of food. ‘I’m Junsu.’

‘Yunho,’ he replies, and follows the other, watching the easy way Junsu cocks his head towards an empty table in invitation, the glide of his steps as he walks and seats himself, the movement of hand and chopstick and mouth.

‘You’re good too,’ blurts Yunho, eager, anticipatory, but Junsu is smiling, holding his gaze, and the heat leaves Yunho’s cheeks, slinks back down his spine and something like the coolness of relief floods his body.

Junsu offers his chopsticks to share the meal and, when their fingers touch, Yunho’s hand glides along the other’s skin like liquid.

 

 

‘You didn’t tell me you were homeless!’ and Junsu’s cool hands land hard on Yunho’s shoulders, dripping icy realization down the other’s back.

‘It’s not – it’s fine,’ Yunho stutters, stumbles, his face heating up in embarrassment because it’s shameful that a son of a law-educated parents ends up on the streets. Junsu is a blast of cold reality in his face, rising up in a wave on his pointed tiptoes so he can reach maximum height, hands on shoulders, bunching his shirt like foam to tug Yunho’s face down to meet his eyes.

‘Stay at my place,’ he says, and the feeling the rises in Yunho is like the tide, sweeping up his ankles, reaching his knees. ‘We have a bunk bed and a guest bedroom. You can stay with me in the bunk bed, and my brother can study alone in the guest bedroom.’

Yunho’s stomach clenches, unclenches, the soft, gentle undulations of the offer easing his spine, the muscles in his shoulders.

‘Junsu,’ he says, but there’s water in his throat making him choke, there’s the ocean in his eyes stinging with salt, ‘Junsu,’ he tries again, and Junsu’s face is the glimmering, liquid reflection of smiling, warm sunlight.

 

 

‘What beat are you dancing too?’ laughs Yunho, watching the impromptu choreography of Junsu in their shared bedroom. Junsu glides from step to the next, curves himself around the obstacles of his bones and tendons, turns into a ribbon of streaming silk underneath the fractured sunlight.

‘How would you do it then?’ challenges Junsu, hands reaching out, sliding their ever-present coolness to glide among the overheated patches of Yunho’s skin – shoulders, neck, cheeks, back down again. Yunho’s lungs fill up with bubbles of feeling.

‘Like this,’ he says instead, and snaps his arms, his legs, focuses on the pulsing beat underneath the bassline, steps swiftly, to the side, back up, back down. He is not the stream of motion that Junsu – he realizes he moves sharper, jerking, snapping his parts into motion.

‘No, no, let me,’ laughs Junsu, fingers trailing drops along Yunho’s forearm. ‘Curve your back like this and bend the knees and rise back up, balance on balls of your feet. Make it smooth.’

But Yunho can’t flow the way Junsu can, he’s not liquid grace, or molten finesse. He tries though – tries harder, faster, and teaches Junsu something of his own. It’s an exchange. Watching Junsu follow him is as watching a refracted reflection of himself – something not quite perfect, a jagged line through the middle and ripples at the edges. Yunho falls in love.

 

 

The arc of Junsu’s back is smooth, flawfree – all of his body is cool, something that relaxes Yunho, eases up his muscles and bones. Junsu’s hands are mapping out the fault lines on Yunho’s skin, pushing between the cracks to fill him up with salt water.

‘If you’re gonna leave for Four Seasons, we can’t do this,’ says Junsu, the words a pattering rain in Yunho’s skull. ‘So this is the only time.’

His eyelashes tickle against Yunho’s cheek, the sensation akin to tears sliding downwards. When Yunho’s mouth pushes against Junsu, he drinks deep of him – deep of the taste texture smell sound –

There’s rain on the window pane, between the spaces of his ribs, a constant patter in Yunho’s head.

‘The only time,’ presses Junsu. He curves, dips, sinks, flows under Yunho’s hands. A sea appears; the tide rising up when Junsu’s legs curl around Yunho’s waist, the waves crashing hard on the beach when Junsu’s arms are hooked over Yunho’s shoulders, the whirlpool opening up when Junsu’s mouth quenches its thirst upon Yunho’s lips.

Yunho drowns.

-

 

**iii.**

Yoochun is made of earth and earthquakes; all hard-packed ground to steady and jagged cracks in between to swallow, and he wraps his warm fingers around Yunho’s floating frame, pulls him up for air, and lets him rest for a while with his back on steady, hard terrain.

‘So you know English, huh? That’s really cool,’ opens up Yunho, whose still in the grasp of liquid loathing, paddling upwards for air, but Yoochun is standing there – messy-haired and wide-eyed as he takes in the company for what it’s worth, mouth open but posture steady, still.

‘Yeah,’ murmurs Yoochun, before his gaze lands on Yunho and he smiles. ‘I’m Yoochun.’

‘Yunho,’ says the other and, without thinking, leans forward to catch his hand around Yoochun’s elbow. ‘I can show you around if you like? Unless you have other things scheduled.’ Yoochun shakes his head and then grins and nods at him, accepting his offer. He pushes back against the hand on his elbow, a steady pressure, and it’s like Yunho’s feet are back on the packed soil again for the first time in months.

‘Culture shock, then? Being from America and all,’ says Yunho as they walk, reluctantly dropping the other’s elbow. Yoochun nods.

‘A little bit,’ and when he speaks, his eyes don’t wander to take in SM – they rest oh-so-completely on Yunho. ‘It hasn’t been that long, but this part of Korea is new to me.’ Yoochun reaches out and thuds his hand against Yunho’s back, grinning. ‘But everyone has been kind to me so far. You too.’

The touch against his spine is assured – certain and concrete against the cotton of his shirt. Yoochun is still smiling, still watching him with those earth eyes.

Yunho takes a breath and the air that comes rushing into his lungs is blessedly dry.

 

 

Yunho is working through his second bottle of soju at the table of the bar the SM trainees often frequent when Yoochun eases into the seat next to him. He runs his finger around the rim of his glass, glassy-eyed and lost, but Yoochun’s voice is the root that curls up in Yunho’s thoughts, anchors him back: ‘I heard they cancelled the Four Seasons project.’

Yunho blinks once, twice and tilts, pressing his shoulder against the other, grounding himself. ‘I won’t ever debut.’

Yoochun hums, brings a hand to curl up around Yunho’s. The touch isn’t blazing, nor is it cool liquid – it’s something in between and it makes Yunho throat close up. He breathes once, and smells the pine of the other’s scent. ‘I want to be known, Yoochun.’

There is a rustle when a napkin is placed on the table and a pen appearing alongside it. Yunho finds himself watching the long lashes of Yoochun’s eyes casting tree-branch shadows down his cheek in the low light of the bar instead of whatever is happening on the table.

A beat later and Yoochun is looking at him, a smile on the bough of his lips. ‘Look.’

The napkin has some English smeared over it that Yunho can vaguely decipher as his own name with something else beside it. ‘What’s this?’

Yoochun laughs, quiet, presses his shoulder back against Yunho, and explains in that voice of his that has the other folding in close, closer, until he’s pressed against the hard ground of Yoochun’s voice and touch and scent.

‘You know Yunho,’ murmurs Yoochun in English for the nth time and finally, it clicks in Yunho’s head.

‘Yunho. You know.’ His accent smears over it, the Gwangju peeking out when he’s trying too hard. ‘Oh.’

‘It’ll be your stage name. Everyone will know you.’

Yunho squeezes Yoochun’s fingers between his, feels them mold and shape themselves between the lines of his fingers, the crease of his palm, the pulse point at his wrist where he wonders if Yoochun can feel how steady and deep his heart thuds, how unending and fixed.

 

 

They move in together soon – the dorms opening their doors onto the promised trainees and something like a group is whispered amongst them. A new project. A bigger project. Yunho steadies himself through rote – through singing, through practice, through dancing, through eating and sleeping and pressing his fingers into the notches of Yoochun’s spine, learning them as if they were a part of his own.

‘They say I should stick to rapping,’ he mentions as they get ready for the night. Yunho watches as the other pulls off his shirt, exposing countries of skin of his back.

‘Your English would help with that,’ mentions Yunho, whose hand is already curving along the small of Yoochun’s back, scratching it up to being tactile, to wanting to learn a person through touch and texture rather than sounds and sayings. Can’t admit that maybe there’s gravity in his friend that lets Yunho breathe steady and deep.

Yoochun laughs – ticklish – but presses back against the pressure of Yunho’s hand. The hardwood floor of their room is solid and stable under the balls of Yunho’s feet, doesn’t let him sink or fall.

‘Teach me,’ he says, ‘they’ll want us all to know how to do rap and English, back-up vocals and all.’

There’s a pause where Yoochun hums in consideration before nodding, ‘yeah, good point.’ He tilts his head. ‘Can you keep the Gwangju out though – that’s the real challenge.’ ‘You brat,’ snaps Yunho, grinning, and tackles him down onto the ground. There are hands on his shoulders, a kick to the shin, an elbow to the spine – but they’re against each other, pinpoints of contact as the world tilts, slides out of focus.

Breathless with exhausted laughter, Yoochun folds his arms around Yunho’s neck in surrender. Gravity steals over Yunho’s ankles, makes him the unmovable hard place with Yoochun as the rock. The object in between is obvious – his thundering, traitorous heart – and Yunho falls in love.

 

 

Yoochun likes touch, eases into it as if Yunho has always had his hands on his shoulders, arms, waist, back. As if they are the oldest, softest, most careful lovers, as if they eternities between each other, layers of sable, sandstone, coal stacked onto each other and pressed together so tightly it’s inescapable.

Yunho wants to write confessions of his love into the grains of sand on Yoochun’s chest, stomach, arms, legs. The continent of his back. The peninsulas of his fingers. The canyons of his ribs.

‘This is a comfort, Yunho,’ reminds Yoochun patiently, as if he isn’t the ground that steadies Yunho’s spine, straightens out his shoulders to something that is ready to carry him along.

Yunho feels like he’s made of limestone and shale and granite – and Yoochun crashes through each layer as if they’re all delicate china. There are gemstones hidden in the curve of his sympathetic smile, granules of mica in the glitter of his eyes – and it is as valuable to Yunho as brittle coal.

‘A comfort,’ murmurs Yunho back at him, the syllables coagulating like mud in his mouth. The sheets on the bed scratches against his knees, the pillow is gravel being crushed against the soft skin of his palm as he looms over the other.

The room is still and silent, but Yunho can feel it quaking, shivering and roaring as tectonic plates scrape against each other, forming mountains and cracking long jagged abysses in the middle of the floor.

Underneath him, Yoochun places a solid, steady hand on Yunho’s chest and presses.

Yunho cracks.

-

 

**ii.**

Jaejoong is made of wind and tempests; all flighty and temperamental, and he drags Yunho upwards, throws him into the sky, curls around him, snakes between his lungs and presses his fingers inside of him, lets him fly.

‘’Sup, leader,’ grins Jaejoong up at him, face bright, eyes glittering and Yunho sucks in a breath, feeling a flush crawl up his neck in embarrassment. He doesn’t know why _he_ was picked when Jaejoong is the eldest but – seeing the other sneer at Changmin out of the corner of his eye – it’s not that hard to guess.

Still, surrounded by Junsu and Yoochun constantly now, Yunho’s throat feels closed up in all the things that have passed and fell through. Their eyes are glazed with platonic affection when they engage him and Yunho figures he needs to learn to do the same.

Then Jaejoong comes back to him, laughing, laying a hand on his arm and Yunho’s lungs clear up and he sucks in one glorious gulp of oxygen after another, grinning back into his face. Jaejoong preens under the attention, and – for a single moment – Yunho imagines this, at least, won’t break.

 

 

‘You want to talk about something?’ Jaejoong is smiling, playing it innocent, his fingers skimming over the kitchen table – not quite touching, displacing air to tickle at the hair on Yunho’s arms as he sits across from the other.

Life is a stage to wreck and Jaejoong is playing each character – folding himself into dozens of different roles. His acting finds the notches in Yunho’s armour and melds into them, becoming a hurricane right where Yunho cannot protect himself.

‘The interview today…’ His jaw locks, and he doesn’t quite know how to proceed. Feels awkward and flailing. He wonders if Junsu and Yoochun can see it – all the ways Jaejoong is cutting through his defenses and overturning his walls with a slip of insecurity, an ounce of conceit.

Jaejoong’s eyes crinkle as he scoffs – the sweeping gust of an oncoming hurricane. ‘I screwed up. Say it.’

The words dig into Yunho’s throat. Jaejoong tries something else – plays it a little shy, a little mysterious – eyelashes fluttering under the long bangs, mouth smeared over with solitude. It doesn’t help, so Jaejoong’s new mask slips sideways, shows something a little serious, a bit graver. Yunho’s chest heaves as a weight seems to slide away, ‘You screwed up.’

The winds dull down, and Yunho’s skin prickles with anticipation. Still, Yunho likes it when everything changes as Jaejoong finds his face, creates a story for the invisible audience, slips his expression to something a little more adoring, a little more affectionate.

It is the calm before the storm. A delighted gasp escapes from Jaejoong’s mouth and it makes his bangs flutter upwards. He slides his chair back with a short sound, and stands up. There’s a draught in the room as goosebumps appear on Yunho’s skin when Jaejoong slides fingers down Yunho’s arms, getting all wide-eyed and vulnerable, making Yunho take in breath after breath as the room swirls and caves upwards as a tornado sweeps in through Yunho’s chest.

‘That’s right, scold me,’ says Jaejoong, with his glittering eyes and everchanging mouth. ‘Don’t pretend – _be_ a fucking leader.’

There is a whistling draft in the room when Jaejoong brings his barely-there touch from arms to shoulders to skull. He slides his fingers through Yunho’s hair, scraping his nails as Yunho’s head tilts back and his throat opens up.

‘Don’t fuck up next week,’ he says.

‘Promise,’ laughs Jaejoong, a cyclone in his voice as it throws everything inside Yunho into chaos.

Still, oxygen fills up Yunho’s mouth, overflows, leaves him a bit light-headed, his body suspended between responsibility and delight. Jaejoong smiles at him, and the all the air leaves the room. For a split-second, before Yunho imagines he’s going to pass out, he feels wanted. Needed.

 

 

‘Can’t go out with subpar clothing, Yunho,’ he says as he faces the body-length mirror in his own leather and belts and flyaway hair. There’s cologne somewhere slinking through the air and making Yunho crinkle his nose.

‘When did you learn the word subpar?’ Yunho jokes instead, eyes trailing down Jaejoong’s physique under the tight jeans and the half-buttoned waistcoat. There’s nothing underneath – only a continent of untouched white skin. ‘I’ll be fine. We’re famous.’

‘Fame cannot excuse not looking beautiful,’ says Jaejoong, inspecting himself, his hands drawing through the air, not touching his hair, his make-up, his clothes, creating a silhouette from the dust floating around him in their dorms. ‘I’m gorgeous like this.’

Yunho slides his hand over the cover of the bedspread and hums, waits for it as if a thunderstorm is brewing in the distance, grey clouds circling around each other in the distance. Jaejoong turns to him, his face uncharacteristically serious: ‘do I look good?’

‘Gorgeous,’ he reassures, the compliment leaving his mouth in a breath and feeling the rush of oxygen that comes from Jaejoong’s smile that breaks bright like daylight through the aftermath of a storm over his face.

He folds into Yunho’s arms in thanks like a feather – all delicate edges and barely-there weight, swept away the moment Yunho blinks. One heartbeat, two heartbeat, three – and Jaejoong is at the doorway, face expectant. ‘Well? Let’s go,’ as if his insecurities are just an ephemeral trail of smoke.

 

 

Junsu and Yoochun have left their marks on the cavern of his soul, carved out pieces of him and left their own imprint behind, unknowing. They work well together – Yunho and Junsu, Yunho and Yoochun, Yunho and everyone else, but still there are marks that are indelible, unforgettable.

Jaejoong doesn’t create a space within as much as slam into him like a typhoon, a high-pitched whistle of claim echoing through the chambers of his heart when he slides one mask on after another, lets them crack, lets Yunho look through.

The sky is getting heavier, coming down on their shoulders, laying hot-cold-lukewarm fingers over their skins as the air gets a little thin, Yunho’s breathing just a little bit labored. Fame courses into his veins, drowning out the cries of the fans around them, and the lights aren’t nearly as blinding as the way Jaejoong is looking at him, showing Yunho how he picks and chooses which persona to slip into, choosing it with deliberation

‘We’re gods to them,’ he says, settling with wide-eyed innocence this time, surprise in the flick of his lashes, the curve of his mouth. The crowd screams in Japanese and Yunho can only stare back at the moving mass, a grin stretching over his mouth in wonder.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll be my only god,’ laughs out Yunho, swinging an arm around Jaejoong’s shoulders, fingers tickling over the bare skin of the other’s bicep and feels like high, indestructible, the typhoon that will swing everything up in the air and leave scars over the earth for everyone to see.

Jaejoong tilts his head, pressing into the touch once, before he’s fluttering away, brief, transient, and all the air in the room feels just a little heavier in Yunho’s lungs – but it’s too late, Yunho falls in love.

 

 

‘The court case was settled this morning, and here’s my new number, ‘ says Jaejoong shortly, his chin propped on the palm of his hand as they sit in the dorm’s kitchen where only Yunho and Changmin are left. The piece of paper lies between them and soon curls, slides, and falls away to the floor from some gust.

Yunho is numb, quiet, and smiles emptily back at him. ‘Goodbye, then?’

Jaejoong slides from cold arrogance to something like sympathy, his hand dropping away from his chin and his face transforming to something endearing and warm. ‘It’ll be fine.’

The air’s a little thin, a little missing, a little like it’s leaving the room and is going to take Yunho’s limited supply of oxygen with it.

Fingers on his face, on his neck, tilting his head upwards. Jaejoong doesn’t taste like anything, nothing at all – he’s just cool and calm and practiced and Yunho’s body is getting lighter and lighter.

‘We can do our goodbye’s like this,’ promises Jaejoong, as if skimming his fingers over Yunho’s skin like feathers, bringing in a gust of wind to slam through his ribs, knock hard against his heart, is the way to end this.

‘Please,’ begs Yunho, once, and Jaejoong smiles, takes pity on him, loves him down as the dorm topples all around them, a tornado of wind scattering the normalcy of everything Yunho has ever known and crashing them all like spikes in his skin.

Yunho suffocates.

-

 

**i.**

Changmin is –

Heechul is fire and he licks tongues of heat into Yunho, burns him up until he’s just a charred husk.

Junsu is water and he is the cool trickles down the inside of Yunho, has him drowning in his own heartbreak.

Changmin is –

Yoochun is earth and he grabs at Yunho’s ankles and grounds him in place until he’s cracking into dust.

Jaejoong is wind and he lifts Yunho up, grabs at the oxygen inside of him and lets him suffocate on words unsaid.

Changmin is –

 

 

‘I’ll stay with you,’ says Changmin, smiling at him like the sun, reassured, confident. He lays a hand on Yunho’s shoulder, steadies him. ‘Don’t worry – I want to.’

Yunho tries to speak past the melancholy in his chest. He always took things deeply into the heart, but Changmin is standing before him – years younger – and Yunho has to at least seem strong for his companion. He clears his throat, smiles – a bit weak, ‘that’s – thank you.’

‘Of course,’ Changmin replies as if his actions make perfect sense, as if it’s completely clear why he should stay. Yunho blinks and the load on his shoulders lighten just a little bit.

 

 

‘Are you… okay with this?’ asks Yunho, the words feeling awkward on his tongue as they sit on the bench after dance practice. The lights are dulled and the backup dancers have left, but Changmin sits beside him and he is a beacon that Yunho cannot look away from.

‘It’s a bit sad,’ admits Changmin. There are water droplets on his bottom lip and it blinds Yunho so he turns away, still feeling the vibrating warmth of the other next to him. ‘But if they can do things, why can’t we?’

‘You don’t have to pity me, Changmin,’ says Yunho. ‘I’ve been through worse.’ There is an empty space right between his lungs, behind the curve of his ribcage, but Changmin warms it without knowing – leaves streaks of gold and silver and precious things where it was otherwise dark. Yet, Yunho can’t be greedy. Can’t keep Changmin’s light to himself.

‘It’s not pity!’ Changmin rears, affronted. His eyes are wide – glittering. There is a galaxy smeared from the sweat on his neck, constellations dotting his hair, stars pressed against his irises. ‘I wouldn’t – I _want_ to be here. Don’t you dare think otherwise.’

Yunho backtracks, blinded by everything – by emotion and imagery and the light of Changmin forcibly shoved against him. His chest opens up and he swallows it down whole, his heart an exploding supernova of affection for the other. ‘Or else?’ He smiles – strained but sincere. ‘You’ll throw chalk in my face?’

‘I’ll make you eat it,’ promises Changmin. ‘Your stupid whip too.’ His brow smoothes out and he returns the smile given, a glimmer of teeth just under his top lip, and Yunho stops keeping track of what he’s drinking in – just swallows everything Changmin gives him whole.

 

 

‘Dinner’s ready,’ calls out Changmin, and Yunho hobbles out of his room in his sweats and a tanktop to set the table. He feels a little disoriented from his nap, but Changmin doesn’t complain when Yunho puts the chopsticks in the bowl rather than beside it.

They eat without much meaningful conversation – Changmin fills him on his recent text message conversations and Yunho mumbles something he hopes is intelligible and intelligent back. At the end of the meal, Changmin is cleaning up the bowls when he glances up through his too-long-needs-a-trim bangs and says, ‘happy ninth anniversary,’ and his face opens up, spills sunlight all over the kitchen tiles.

Yunho stares at him. ‘Of course.’ Years later, he still can’t help marveling how the room fills up in warmth whenever the other is there.

And Changmin furrows his brow before laughing quietly to himself – a peek of tongue and slice of teeth all rubies and diamonds scattered over the dining table. He’s probably mumbling something like ‘absent-minded Yunho’ as he dumps the dishes in the sink for Yunho to deal with before struts to the living room.

Except Yunho grabs around his wrist, marveling at how his callouses wrap around the still-soft pale skin of Changmin and tugs him so that Changmin is staring at him in curiosity, his expression rippling and refracting between the lightbulb of the kitchen and the shine of the wooden counter and linoleum tiles.

‘Thank you. For everything.’ Yunho hopes his earnestness is coming through. Amongst other things.

The other is taking his hand back, brows raised in amusement, his voice as precious as a handful of pearls when he replies with a simple, ‘of course.’ And his back is turning again and Yunho is left alone in the kitchen with a bunch of dirty dishes and a contemplative half-smile. Changmin isn’t Heechul’s fire, nor Junsu’s water. Changmin is –

 

 

And maybe it’s inevitable that he falls for Changmin last. Changmin who was just one part of the five of them, but now he’s an entire half of Yunho, standing beside him, singing, dancing, performing without missing a beat to be alongside him.

There’s a vivacity that curls in itself in Changmin – past the snark and arrogance and conceit, the nagging, the snarls and smiles. It slinks between Yunho’s bones when he’s not looking, makes him wipe the tiredness from his face when he sees Changmin coming over to him, his hairspray wilting and eyeliner smeared, but there’s a light in his eyes and Yunho falls for it.

Yunho falls for it over and over again, feeling flushed with it, unending, and he’s can’t help but be just a little bit terrified, a little apprehensive. Changmin isn’t Yoochun’s earth, nor Jaejoong’s wind. Changmin is –

 

 

Somewhere between their ninth anniversary and their tenth, Yunho didn’t exactly keep track but Changmin is good at that sort of thing, he catches Changmin around the wrist again and pulls him close, tucks himself in the space between Changmin’s jaw and neck where he finds he fits where he’s never fit before.

Changmin is frozen for a moment before he’s sighing in exasperation, wrapping his arms around Yunho and propping his chin on top of the dyed-too-many-times hair – still soft and damp from his nightly shower.

‘Yeah?’ he asks, running his fingers absentmindedly down the length of Yunho’s spine and leaving sparks of life behind. Yunho feels like he could burst open in blooms – offer the other lilies and peonies grown from the life coursing in his backbone, hand over all the sappy, nonsensical things that Changmin hates and Yunho loves and –

Changmin is –

‘Changmin,’ Yunho says and hopes his thankfulness is coming through – amongst other things.

(That Seoul could have a nuclear winter tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter. That when the white ashes started falling and the lights would go out and the world plummeted into the dark and dust – no, it wouldn’t matter at all because Yunho could live through it if Changmin was beside him.)

‘Dumbass,’ replies Changmin and when he kisses Yunho, nebulas explode within the spaces between his ribs, galaxies created underneath his cheekbones, new constellations drawing themselves out wherever Changmin skims his fingers over Yunho’s skin.

Changmin is –

He mouths at Yunho’s pulse point and everything accelerates, sharpens to the feel of Changmin over him, around him, consuming him. He lets Changmin strip him down, leave him vulnerable and exposed and lets his hands draw out maps and countries over Yunho’s skin, skipping over the valleys of his collarbones and the deserts of his back and mountain ridge of his spine.

Changmin is careful with him, Changmin knows him, and he takes his leadership away from Yunho, takes away the responsibility from his shoulders and his thoughts and uncertainty as he kisses Yunho’s mouth, his cheekbones, his forehead and chin and jaw and whisper compliments and praise into Yunho’s ears.

When Changmin cups Yunho, strokes him, lets Yunho vibrate as his nails digging into Changmin’s shoulder blades, Yunho breaks apart. He slides his knees apart and lets himself be taken inside and out. Let s Changmin’s gentility and understanding and softness tear him apart as he is fucked to kingdom come, Changmin setting a pace that is relentless and urgent and years upon years in the making.

And when Yunho comes with a startled gasp, his hips moving in tandem with Changmin, it is like seeing the universe in a blink, and nothing will compare. Changmin is still the unrelenting, burning, redemptive heat inside of him and Yunho lets him, arches his back and lets Changmin shove into him, as he feels the familiar burn of orgasm tighten Changmin’s muscles underneath Yunho’s hands.

‘Yunho,’ says Changmin against the skin of Yunho’s neck, his hips slowing, his fingers tangled in the sheets, bracketing Yunho’s head, and Yunho lets out a breath.

‘Got you,’ says Yunho, his being spread out like a net to catch the trickling rays of light that fall from Changmin. And Changmin comes, quietly, muffled, filling Yunho up and marking him inside and out.

When he curls up beside Yunho, catching his breath, Yunho feels full of adoration, of warmth, of life and he knows what Changmin is.

Changmin is aether.

 

 

The next morning and Yunho runs his hands along the warmth of his sheets as he sits on the edge of his empty bed, settling for heartbreak once more.

But the bedroom door opens then and Changmin is holding two cups of coffee, stars in his eyes, and he comes back.

Changmin is aether, and he takes Yunho, breathes life into him, and doesn’t let him go until Yunho is ready to die, and that’s not going to be tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. Changmin is aether and Changmin will stay forever.

-

 

**Author's Note:**

> admittedly, I ship all of these ships to some extent, and I have a lot of headcanons as to how Yunho has been influenced by the people around him, so this fic was an exercise in that.
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :)
> 
> x-posted to [tumblr](http://leftfoottrapped.tumblr.com/post/60112183351/).


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